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Title: The Tower of the Dream Author: Charles Harpur eBook No.: 2100461h.html Language: English Date first posted: 2021 Most recent update: 2021 This eBook was produced by: Walter Moore View our licence and header

The Tower of the Dream

Charles Harpur

Part I Part II The Song Part III Part IV Song

Part I

How wonderful are dreams! Yet, are they but (As some suppose) the thin disjoining shades Of thoughts or feelings long foregone or late, As recomposed and put in ghostly act, And strange procession, wildly mixed, and yet So life-like, though thus composite and wild, By mimic Fancy; when, alone awake, And thence unhindered in her mystic craft, She tracks again the drifts of wearied Thought, Itself sunk sleepward! Wonderful no less Are they though this be true; and wondrous more Is she who in the dark, and stript of sense, Can claim such sovereignty — the Queen of Art! For what a cunning painter is she then, Who hurriedly embodying from the waste Of things memorial littering life’s dim floor, The forms and features, manifold and quaint, That crowd the timeless vistas of a Dream, Fails never in a stroke; and breathes as well (With powers that laugh at Sculpture, — or make good The fabled influence of Pygmalion’s weird Devotion to his own creative craft) A spirit of motion into all her work — The test of Deity; — inspiring too Her phantom creatures with more eloquent tones Than ever broke in subtle light-like wares Upon the province of a waking ear. But are they more? True glimpses oft, though vague, Derived from some unnavigable sea Of mystic being, on whose lonely shore The normal terminates; and where the pent, Impatient Soul, from its sleep-shrouded crib, Is sometimes wont to slip, and roam at large, Like Crusoe, staring forth; or musing, stand As did the intelligence of Newton once On the bare beach of time, while the great deep Of Truth, by Science yet uncharted, loomed In shoreless width, — illimitably out, Under the incommunicable sky? No answer cometh, and as vain is all Conjecture: they are dreams! but wonderful, However we may rank them in our lore. And worthy of some fond record are those states Of our interior being, though aberrant, That with so capable a wand can bring Back to the faded heart, the rosy flush And sweetness of a long fled love, or touch The eyes of an old enmity with tears Of a yet older friendship; or restore A world-lost mate, or reunite in joy The living and the dead! And this can Dreams: With more as wonderful;— can, when so wills Their wands weird wielder, whatsoe’er it be, Lift up the fallen — fallen however low! Rejuvenate the worn, enrich the poor, The past imparadise, and enchant the present; Build in the future higher than the hope Of Power, when boldest, ever dared to soar; Annul, as with the sanction of the Infinite, The prison bars of place, the dens of time, — Giving the rigid and cold clanking chain Which Force, that grey iniquity, hath clenched About its captive, to relent, — yea, stretch Forth into Fairy Land; or melt like wax In that fierce life whose spirit lightens wide Round Freedom, seated on his mountain throne! Or witching Memory, where she darkling lies, Can so accomplish her that she can make All brute bulk ocular — the great Earth itself Diaphanous, like a mighty globe of glass Hung in the dim Inane, and thence reveal Some yearned-for hearth at the antipodes, With all its loves; or spread. at once her wings O’er all the eras of a wandering life, As from the orient to the ends of heaven The silvery fans of light, evolving, show All things beneath them in one world-wide act Instant and universal. — Wonderful! But not thus always are our dreams benign: Oft are they miscreations — gloomier worlds, Crowded tempestuously with Wrongs and Fears, More ghastly than the Actual ever knew; And rent with racking noises — such as might, If audible ever to a soul awake, Go thundering only through the wastes of Hell. So wonderful are Dreams: and I have known Many most wild and strange. And once, long since, As in the death-like mystery of Sleep My body lay impalled, my soul arose And journeyed outward in a dream of wonder, In the mid hour of a dark night, methought I roamed the margin of a waveless lake, That, in the knotted forehead of the land Deep sunken, like a huge Cyclopean eye, Lidless and void of speculation, stared Glassily up, — forever sleepless, —up At the wide vault of heaven; and that I had Also a vague and mystic consciousness That over against me, on the farther shore, Which yet I might not see, there stood a Tower Such as we read of in some old romance. The darkness darkened, until overhead Solidly black the starless heaven domed, And earth was one wide blot; — when, as I looked, A light swung blazing from the tower (as yet Prophesied only in imagination,) And brought at once its rounded structure forth Out of the mighty gloom, wherein, till then So shut, it seemed as one in substance with it. And when this light had steadied, hanging there Suspended as by magic, I might see In the wide lake, whose whole disc new first shown, Glimmered enormous, — the far falling stream Of its wild radiance, columnar and vast, Reach quivering — down, like a great shaft of fire, Through the lit fluid, that, so lightened, seemed A vague abysm infinitely deep. Long at that wild light was I gazing held In speechless wonder — till I thence could feel A strange and thrillingly attractive power In gradual operation; and ere long My bodily weight seemed witched away, and up I mounted, poised within the passive air; Then glode ascendingly sheer o’er the lake, Which far below, as tow’rds the wondrous light The attraction drew me, I beheld illumined Even to its sullen depths with shifting beams, That tangled tower-ward into one broad path Of multifarious splendour — one red blaze Yet various, interwrithing, wild and quick, As every molecule of the watery mass Had an organic life, and played a part Restlessly proper to its wayward self, Though tending all into one glow of bright Disunion in bright union — one red blaze Still poised within the soft air, on I slid: Nor knew I why — but my amaze wore off As thus I glode over the lake, and still Approached the tower, and that so wondrous light! And soon, instead, a many-branching warmth Like the sweet inklings of new love, Began to tingle in my blood, and so divine The nearness of some yet unseen Content, Still nearing, or some yet inaudible Joy, So great, so reconciling, that it seemed It was a golden destiny whose spell Had lifted me aloft, and tower-ward on Thus richly attracted:— and with this so sweet Conception — lo, how beautiful a change!

Part II

Within a circular balcony, whose roof Was fluted silver, ledging at the eaves Outward, and resting upon shafts of jet, Whose polished pencils, in a curving row Descending to an ivory balustrade Glistened in contrast with a covert gleam; And which, high up the tower, emporched a huge And brazen door — behold a Lady, all Of light immaculate! Yea, face and form All of a Hesper radiancy composed, And lovelier than lustrous, stood alone, Yet, as it seemed, expectant; for as still She witched me tow’rds her, she kept beckoning still With tiny hand more splendid than a star: Beckoning and smiling — not as mortals smile, With visible throes, to the more face confined, But with her whole bright influence all at once In gracious act — as the immortals smile, God-happy; or as smiles the morning, when Its subtle lips in rosy glory part And redden lengthwise, under and above Full many a pearly cloud, and breathe the while A golden prevalence of power abroad, That takes them all into his own delight — Transfiguring all! and with a voice intense And intimately tender as the first Fine feeling of a love-born bliss — and oh! More silvery in its sweetness to the soul’s Oracular ear, than seemeth to the eye The wild white radiance of the maiden moon, When from some cape’s dark beak her rising mass Looks o’er the ocean — even with such a voice, So keen, so silvery, did she ask me then, “Where hast thou stayed so long? Oh, tell me where!” With thrilling ears and heart, I heard — but felt Pass from me forth a cry of sudden fear, As swooning through the wildness of my joy, Methought I drifted: — whither? All was now One wide cold blank — the Lady and the Tower — The gleaming lake, with all around it — one Wide dreary blank, — the drearier for that still A dizzy, clinging, ghostly consciousness Kept flickering from mine inmost pulse of life, Like a fair meteor in some dismal marsh: How long I dreamt not — but the thrilling warmth That like the new birth of a passionate bliss, Erewhile had searched me to the quick, again Shuddered within me, — more and more, — until Mine eyes had opened under two that made All else like darkness; and upon my cheek A breath that seemed the final spirit of health And floral sweetness, harbingered once more The fond enquiry of that silver voice Which once to have heard was never to forget — “Where hast thou stayed so long? Oh, tell me where!” And when she thus in her so wondrous way Had spoken, there came, warbled as it seemed In mystical respondence to her voice, Still music, such as Eolus gives forth, But purer, deeper; — warbled as from some Unsearchable recess of soul supreme — Some depth of the Eternal! echoing thence Through the sweet meanings of its spirit speech, The fond enquiry that awoke me now: “Where hast thou stayed so long? Oh, tell me where!” I answered not, but followed in mute love The beamy glances of her eyes with mine, As in that balcony which up that tower Emporched the brazen door, methought I now Close at her side reclined upon a couch Of purple, blazoned all with stars of gold, Tremblingly rayed with spiculated gems, And argent moons, — and bearing on cushions, rough (Save where they met the flexure of the arm) With sheaves of flowers in glowing tissue wrought. Thus set we, looking forth; nor did I marvel, As her’s now led my vision, to remark How the broad lake, with its green shelving shores, Swarming with honey-yielding flowers, or hung With vines in masses, bunched with fruit; and thence The prospect all — hills, skies, and winding vales, And bloomy forests of unspeakable beauty, Were basking in the blessedness of a day So goldenly serene, that never yet The perfect power of life-essential light Might so enrobe, since Paradise was lost, The common world inhabited by man. I saw all this surpassing beauty — but, I saw it thus through her superior life, As orbing mine in love — yea, saw it through Her mystic moon-like sphere of being, that seemed (Transpicuously) the inexhaustible source Of holiest motives, and truth-breathing thoughts — Breathing abroad like odours from a flower; And orient idealities; and more Of rosy passion, and affectionate joy, And earnest tenderness, than many souls Of earth’s most fervent and ecstatic daughters United might possess; all interflowing Through the fine issues of a love at once Wilful and nice, but sanctioned none the less By its so brilliant purity. Nor might The glassy lake below more quickly give Nimble impressions of the coming wind’s Invisible footsteps, dimpling swift along, Than instant tokens of communion sweet With outward beauty’s subtle spirit, passed Forth from her eyes, and thence in lambent waves Suffused and lightened o’er the splendid whole Of her bright visage, or about her head In spheres ran raying like a glory of bliss! But as upon the wonder of her beauty My soul new feasted, even till it seemed Instinct with kindred lustre, — lo, her eyes Suddenly saddened; then abstractedly Outfixing them as on some far wild thought That darkened up like a portentous cloud, Over the morning of our peace, she flung Her silver voice into a mystic song Of many measures, which as forth they went, Slid all into a sweet abundant flood Of metric melody! And with this, as still She poured it out, invisible singers mixed A choral burden that prolonged the strain’s Rich concords, till the echoes of the hills Came challengingly forth, and backward then Subsiding like a refluent wave, afar, Blent all into one mystery of sound — One manifold cadence — dying down. The Song (Which strangely seemed through all its mystic drift Addressed to the so stubborn fact, that I Was sleeping, and its utterer but a Dream) Is traced upon the tablet of my soul In shining lines that intonate themselves — Not sounding to the ear, but to the thought, Out of the vague east of the wonderful! And might when hardened into mortal speech, And narrowed from its wide and various sweep Into such flows as make our waking rhymes Most wildly musical, be written thus:—

The Song

Wide apart — wide apart, In old Time’s dim heart One terrible fiend doth his stern watch keep Over the mystery Lovely and deep, Locked in thy history, Beautiful Sleep! Could we disarm him — Could we but charm him, The soul of the sleeper might happily leap Through the darkness so dreadful — so deathly and deep That shroudeth the triple divinity Composing thy mystical trinity: Liberty, Gratitude, Boundless Beatitude, Beautiful Spirit of Sleep! Beautiful Spirit of Sleep! Could we confound him Who darkens thy throne — Could we surround him With spells like thy own; For the divinity Then of thy Trinity, Oh, what a blesseder reign were begun! For then were it evermore one With all that soul, freed from the body’s strait scheme, Inherits of seer-light and mystical dream. And to sleep were to die, Into life in the Infinite, Holy and high, Spotless and bright, And so peacefully deep; And thence unto Liberty, thence unto Gratitude, With the third in thy trinity — Boundless Beatitude: Beautiful Spirit of Sleep!

Part III

She ceased: and a deep tingling silence fell Instantly round, — silence complete, and yet Instinct as with a breathing sweetness, left By the rare spirit of her voice foregone: Even as the fragrance of a flower were felt Pervading the mute air through which erewhile, It had been borne by the delighted hand Of some sweet-thoughted maiden. Turning then Her bright face tow’rds me, as I stood entranced, Yet with keen wonder stung, she said, “I love thee! As first love loveth — utterly! But ah! This Love itself — this purple-wingèd Love — This spirit-enriching Spirit of delight Is but a honey-bee of Paradise, That only in the morning glory dares To range abroad — and when a vagrant most Adventure out into the common world Of man and woman; — thither lured by sight Of some sweet human soul that blooms apart, Untainted by a rank soil’s weedy growths: — Lured thither thus — yet being even then, But wilful wandering away — away From its pure birth-place (innocent only there!) And whereunto it must again return, Or forfeit else its natal passport, — ere The dread night cometh. Yet of how great worth Is all foregone affection? In the spring Of even the lowliest love, how many rich And gracious things that could not else have been, Grow up like flowers, and breathe a perfume forth That never leaves again the quickened sense It once hath hit, as with a fairy’s wand, However fanciful may seem at last The charm through which it came.” And having said These mystic sentences, so wild and sweet, And memorably mournful, — lo, her eyes Ran o’er with lustres as they opened up Under mine own now melancholy gaze. And thus we stood, turned one unto the other, Till Love again grew glad even from the rich And wine-like luxury and voluptuous worth Of its own tear-showers, shed as from the heart! Forth then once more we looked — silently happy: Alas! not long: for with a short low gasp Of sudden fear, she started; nor might I Stand unalarmed. For hark! within the Tower, A sound of strenuous steps approaching fast, Rang upward, as it seemed, from the hard slabs Of a steep-winding stair; and soon the huge And brazen portal that behind us shut, Burst open! with a clang of loosened bolts — A clang like thunder, that went rattling out Against the echoes of the distant hills. With deafened ears and looks aghast, I turned Tow’rds the harsh noise — there to behold, between The mighty jambs in the Tower-wall from which The door swung inward, a tremendous Form! A horrid gloomy Form! that shapeless seemed, And yet, in its so monstrous bulk, to Man A hideous likeness bare! Still more and more Deform it grew, as forth it swelled, and then Its outlines, shadowing forward, so were lost On all sides in a grizzly haze, that hung Vaguely about them, — even as dull grey clouds Beskirt a coming Tempest’s denser mass, That thickens still internally, and shows The murkiest in the midst — yea, murkiest there Where big with fate, and hid in solid gloom, The yet-still spirit of the thunder broods, And menaces the world. So dread that Form! Meanwhile, beholding it, the Lady of light Had rushed to my extended arms, and hid Her beamy face, fright-harrowed, in my bosom! And thus we stood, made one in fear; while still That terrible Vision out upon us glared With horny eyeballs — all the more horrid For that no evidence of conscious will, Or touch of passion, vitalised their fixed Eumenidèan, stone-cold stare, as tow’rds Some surely destined task they seemed to guide Its shapeless bulk and pitiless strength alone. Then with a motion as of one dark stride Shadowing forward, and outstretching straight One vague-seen arm, from my reluctant grasp It tore the radiant Lady, muttering “This
Is love forbidden!” in a voice whose tones Were like low guttural thunders heard afar, Outgrowling from the clouded gorges wild Of neighboring mountains, when a sultry storm Is pondering in its dark pavilions there, And concentrating, like a hill-born host, Ere it rush valeward; and, as suddenly, Seized by the other, I was backward thrown Within the Tower, and heard ere I could rise From the cold platform, the huge brazen door Drawn harshly grating to; its beamlike bar Dropt, with a wall-quake, and the bolts all shot Into their sockets with a shattering jar! I may not paint the horrible despair That froze me now: (more horrible than aught In actual destiny, whether bonds or death, Could give the self-possession of my soul, If wide awake.) I listened. All was still! Within — without; — all silent, stirless, cold! What was my doom? And where was she, my late So luminous delight? Gone! Reft away So strangely, terribly! and I myself, For some all-unimaginable cause, A dungeoned wretch! Time, every drip of which Was as an age, kept trickling on, but there Brought no release — no hope; — brought not a breath That spake of fellowship, or even of life. Out of myself — my lonely self! I stood Utterly blank — utterly shrunken up, In marble-cold astonishment of heart! And when at length I cast a desperate look — A look so desperate that the common gift Of vision stung me like a deadly curse — Up and around, pure pity of myself So warmed and loosened from my brain the pent And icy anguish, that its load at once Came, like an alp-thaw, streaming through mine eyes; Till resignation, that so balmy sweet Meek flower of Grief which hath its root in tears, Grew out of mine, — and leisure therewithal To inspect my prison, whether weak or strong. It was a lofty coil, half round, and had, Massively set, within the crossing wall That seemed to cut the Tower’s whole round in twain, A second door — shut, and all clamped with brass, And rough with rows of monstrous iron studs, And which might haply have thence opened in Athwart some stairway (as I guessed) that led Down through the Tower; and by the side of this A bat-wing’d steed on scaly dragon claws — A strange, mute, mystic, almost terrible thing, Stood rigid, with a tripod near it placed. Bare were the dull and ragged walls, but pierced High out of reach by two small ports that looked Eastward and westward. As I noted these, Full on my sight a transient sunbeam fell Slantingly through, and glowed on the damp floor A moment, like a streak of burning blood, Then vanished: wherefore in my heart I guessed That o’er the mountain tops the sun was then Oceanward sinking mid the fiery clouds. By sure and palpable degrees the night Came on, and the cell darkened. Yea, I saw The steed and tripod — all its furniture — Fade, melting gradually, more and more, Into the darkness; even as a fish, Through the dense medium of its element, Retiring down, is in its outlines seen More shadowy — till ’tis lost. Then all was black. And to and fro I paced, hour after hour, And heard my step, the only sound to me In all the wide world, throb with a dull blow Down through the hollow Tower that seemed to yawn Immeasurably beneath me, — as it were A monstrous well whose wide waste mouth was bridged By that dull-quaking strip of floor alone On which I darkling strode. Yet on I kept Pacing, though horrified. Hour after hour Passed as if clotting at the heart of Time — Each an eternity of wild expectation, And weary astonishment! — hour after hour! And yet no other sound had being there, Though, as I knew, one live, unmoving Thing So near me stood in that blind solitude — Stood waiting — wherefore? by the inner door.

Part IV

At last, all suddenly, in the air aloft, O’er the tower a wild, weird, wailful song Woke flying, many-voiced; — then sweeping off Out tow’rds the echoey hills, so passed away In dying murmurs through the hollow dark.

Song

In vain were our spells wrought — In vain was She well taught How that dread Watcher’s eyes drowsy to keep; In vein was the dragon-steed There at the hour of need, Out with his double-freight blissward to sweep. Lost — lost — lost — lost! In vain were our spells of an infinite cost! Lost — lost — lost — lost! Yon Gulf by a mortal may never be crossed never! Never — ah never! The doom holds for ever! And to aid her aught more Is out of sphere and transcendeth our lore. Lost — lost — lost — lost! Come away — come away. Since only in soul yon vague Gulf can be crost, Our beautiful Mistress her failure must weep — Weep — weep — weep — weep! Away — come away! For see, wide uprolling, the white front of day! Away to the mystic mid-regions of Sleep — Of the beautiful Spirit of Sleep! Lost — lost — lost — lost! * * * * * * * * So passed that song (of which the drift alone Is here reached after in such leaden speech As uncharmed mortals use.) And when its tones Out tow’rds the mountains in the dark afar, Had wasted, I grew sensible, methought, Of seasonable change; — that now the Cell Kept clarifying till the darkness seemed Marbled with grey; and then the steed again, With his strange dragon-claws and half spread wings, And eke the tripod, where it still had stood, Figured like shadows through the thinning gloom, And gradually thence, by just the same Degrees reversed in which they’d faded there Into the darkness as the night advanced, Came forth in full development again. It was the Dawn: and thus it clearing kept, Till through the eastern port a golden rod Of light fell transiently, and so bespake The sunrise! Oh, it was a desolate pass, To feel, — immured in that relentless keep, — How on the purple bills the sun was then Rejoicing in his glory! Then to know That he was wheeling up the heaven, and o’er My prison roof, — hour after hour, to think How he was tracking with a step of fire His midway course, and loudening through the world The thunder of its universal life! Or how his mighty orb had sloped in Time’s Descending scale, and thence was glorying down Into the crimson waves of some wide sea Beyond the Hesperides! But this, alas! Was my dread fate while seven times day and night So wearily came, — so wore away; and yet I slept not! nor (to my amazement) there, Through all this drear time, did the wintry tooth Of hunger gnaw within my corporal frame! No thirst inflamed me! While by the grim door Which seemed to shut athwart some stairway, stood That strange, unmoving, dragon-footed Steed, As from the first, — and there the tripod, placed As if to aid some fugitive to mount At once — and fly! Mere wonder at my doom, So unimaginably wild and vague, Relieved the else-fixed darkness of despair. But on the seventh night, in the stillness, — hark! What might I hear? A step? — a small light step, That by the stair ascending, swiftly came Straight to the inner door — then stopt. Alas! The black leaf opened not; and yet, the while, In evidence of some bright Being that out Beyond it stood, a rainbow radiance through Its solid breadth, in subtle wave on wave Came flushing, — even as a sunset glow Through some dense cloud upon the verge of heaven, In swift rich curves wells percolating forth: So came it — filling all the cell at length With rosy lights that in the darkness fumed Like luminous odors; at the scent of which, The mystic steed, so rigid until then, Moved, and spread wide his glimmering bat-like wings. When hark! deep down in the mysterious Tower, Another step? Yea, the same strenuous tramp That once before I’d heard big-beating up, Came following — till a low sad cry without Went to my heart, and I might hear ensue A struggle as of one forced down the stair By that so ruthless Guard! — down, till the cell Again had darkened, and the Tower itself Stood once more as in some mute void of Time, Or depth of distance infinitely out, Achingly still. But not for long! Again The Monster’s hateful tramp came booming up, Quake above quake that with a shudder stopt Dead at the door. It opened; and he stood In dubious presence ’twixt the mighty jambs, Filling the whole wide space. But ere the Fiend Might enter farther, rage and hate at once Possessed me, and I charged him! For awhile His horrible glooms voluminously vague, Yet with a smothering pressure in their folds, Involved me! — concentrating more and more, And lapping closer in yet denser coils, Every dread moment! But my agony now, My pain, and hate, and loathing, — all had grown Into so vast a horror, that methought I burst with irresistible strength away! Rushed through the door, and down the stairway — down An endless depth; till a portcullis, hinged In the Tower’s basement, opened to my flight! No sooner had I passed it, than it fell In thunder too! and thence my passage lay Along the difficult ledges of a rock Against whose base the Lake’s long ripple lapped. And when at last, breathless and faint, I paused In that so giddy flight, methought I saw The lustrous Lady up through the lit air Ascending, with a steadfast downward look Of parting recognition, — full of love, But painless, passionless. Upward she passed, Above the Tower, and o’er the clouds, — and when Her radiance melted through heaven’s marble dome And left it vacant in its infinite vastness, All things methought had changed, and I was there Standing alone in a wide waste that stretched On all hands out — illimitably out! Standing alone in a waste universe, That showed, as under an abortive dawn, Its grey immensity, and nothing more! Still, empty, objectless! — and thereupon There fell back on my soul a sense of loss So bleak, so desolate, that with a wild Sleep-startling outcry, suddenly I awoke! Awoke, to find it but a Dream of Wonder! Yet ever since to feel as if some pure And guardian Soul, out of the day and night, Had passed for ever from the reach of Love! Albeit I know, that to the Poet’s mind, No light, no loveliness it once hath known, Though only through the mystery of a dream, Is after lost; but in effect remains, As comfort, or as wisdom, or as grace, In union with its substance evermore — A gathered portion of the life and might Of His predestined influence on the world.

THE END

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